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CLOUD TALK

Who doesn't love clouds?! Word clouds, that is! I must confess that I few years ago I thought word clouds were fun-lesson-magic. I think they still have application in the language classroom—my favorite site is www.tagxedo.com. Your students can create their own clouds online, like a word cloud summary of a listening activity or their own theme-based vocabulary tasks for their classmates, like the lessons here. For some of my short-term international students, I've had them create word-cloud maple leaves with words that represent themselves and some of their favourite experiences in Canada. Great souvenirs!

Word cloud activities can be adapted for ALL levels.

I've also played word cloud quizzes with the "live clouds" for get-out-of-your-seat-and-get-the-blood-flowing time. Put a word cloud live on tagxedo on the classroom screen, divide the class into teams, have your cloud-connected questions ready (or better yet, have each team read questions for the other team), and count how many questions each team can answer in 30 seconds (or whatever time you choose). The answering teams can shout the answers, run up to the screen to point to the correct words, or (my favorite) have access to the mouse or pointer to highlight the correct words! The words will grow and spin when you hover over them.